Being asked to be a “Vision Speaker” leaves me only slightly less queasy than being called a “thought-leader” (what an awful phrase that is!), but there I was in Albuquerque this past June, kicking off the annual NASIG conference. Fortunately, I was in good company. Heather Joseph, from SPARC, opened up day 2, and James J. O'Donnell, my favorite Renaissance man, spoke eloquently and with real vision on Sunday. (And yes, Jim, I realize that the Renaissance is several centuries more recent than your heart's true professional home).
The videos of the talks are now up on the NASIG YouTube channel. Next spring the lightly edited transcripts will be published as part of the conference proceedings. I think we each had some worthwhile things to say, but if you're only going to take the time to watch one of them, I'd recommend Jim's, just because his delivery is so good.
For my part, I argued that efforts to fill IRs with copies of peer reviewed papers that are already available OA somewhere else, such as the publisher's site or a repository like PubMed Central, are misguided. Such efforts, which consume a considerable amount of energy for some IR managers, have not achieved their intended benefits, and they divert resources from other activities that would have a much greater benefit. I suggest that we take a deep breath, reassess what's working and what we're trying to achieve, and, for at least some IRs, shift priorities.
Here's my transcript and slides. (And many thanks to Kate Moore for doing such a fine job with the transcript).
Download Dialectic-The Aims of Institutional Repositories TSP with Bibliography
